8/07/01

Nick Riley

To start off, most of the kids did not pay heed to the advice of the adults when they suggested that we get an early night’s sleep, and most of us went to bed for about an hour. We went hot air ballooning today, which was awesome, but I will get to that later. However, going along with hot air ballooning comes getting up at 3:00 AM to take the two hour drive to Temecula Valley, and get in the air before it gets too hot….it was an AWESOME experience! The view was amazing, especially since it was early enough, and we got to see the sun come up while we were 1000 feet in the air. We were up there for about an hour, and we brought two video cameras with us to get some B roll, which is simply just the technical way to say "pick up shots’. Later, we went back to Paramount Studios, which we went earlier in the week, and we saw Danny Devito who actually said "hi" to us. We went to Paramount to see the taping of the show "One on One", and it was actually a lot cooler than I thought it would be. First, I had never heard of the show, so I didn’t expect it to be very good, but when we got there, it turned out to be a lot of fun (at least I thought so). Before the show started, and after completing scenes, there was a warm up person who told jokes, and got the crowd all pumped up, since they were taping our laughter to use for the show. The guy went around and asked people if they had any special talents, such as singing or dancing, and if they wanted to perform in front of the audience. Ray, one of the kids in our group got up and did a little skit, pretending he did not speak English, and later, Buck, one of our fearless leaders got up and danced in front of the audience….both very funny. All in all, it turned out to be a great day, not necessarily all that much footage for the show, but great for team building and just a fun day in California.